Book of the Week: A Pick by Maki

This week's Book of the Week pick comes from Maki who has selected New Shinjuku by Daido Moriyama published by Getsuyosha.

"I was in Japan when I first read Shinjuku (Getsuyosha, 2002), which I considered as one of the best photobooks of Daido Moriyama (besides the historical Farewell Photography). That was in the last decade. I had rented a small and cheap room with my girlfriend Masami in Shin-Okubo, the Korean area right next to Kabukicho in Shinjuku. As I was looking at the book every night, attracted like a magnet to those pictures when back home, I recognized the places I could go myself in my day and night walks towards the neighborhood. I was not only fascinated by this geographical immersion but by the straight to the point editing of the book, inventive, with a great freedom and spontaneity, revealing the personality of the photographer and something that has been little said about him: his humor. Today with this new edition the book is rediscovered and restructured, compiling the original book with the book Shinjuku + (Getsuyosha, 2006) and expanding it by 150 pages and 110 new and unpublished pictures taken by the photographer during 5 years around 2000 in Shinjuku. This New Shinjuku keeps the atmosphere and the essence of the original but with a new edit. After all these years I realize with this new revised and expanded edition that it's not only one of the highlights of one of the best photographers of our time, but also a historical document of Japan."—Maki

Maki — French photographer for over 30 years. Collector of photobooks. He was founding member of the collective SMOKE of European photographers (2007-2012). Publisher of the mini photobooks collection Média Immédiat. Photobooks reviewer on websites as well as in the "Photobooks Collectors" Facebook page.http://dirtystylephoto.blogspot.fr/search?q=maki